TEHRAN: Taking the role of the villain in Iran’s passion plays used to be a dangerous business. As soon as you cut down the Prophet Mohammad’s grandson Imam Hussein, you had to be ready to make a quick exit.
In times past, a few actors playing the wicked commander Shemr were torn to pieces by distraught crowds who momentarily forgot they had only seen a dramatisation of the martyrdom of Hussein in the desert of southern Iraq in AD 680.
Malek Hossein, 74, who plays Shemr every year in the annual Taziyeh passion plays outside a Tehran shrine, chuckled when asked whether the role still meant risking one’s life.
“I have been playing Shemr for 20 years and there has only been one woman who leapt out of the crowd and told me to stop,” he said, laying down his helmet and scimitar to puff on a cigarette between scenes.
The crowds might not be so dangerous these days reflecting a change in Iranian society but the plays still fire visceral emotions among black-clad crowds often several thousand strong. The audience weeps and sobs as Imam Hussein and his comrades are struck down.
Hussein is a seminal figure to Shias. The day when Hussein dies upon the battlefield at Kerbala is called Ashura.
Several playgoers at the Tehran shrine detected a clear modern resonance in the story of Imam Hussein and his few comrades making a heroic final stand against far stronger forces.
Iran is under concerted international pressure to abandon its nuclear fuel programme, which Western nations suspect will be used for weapons. Tehran denies the allegation.
“If they want to deprive us of our rights, the spirit of Ashura will inspire the people,” said Mehrdad Tousehkhani, 20, selling CDs of religious anthems.
Bus driver Hamzeh said he felt painfully ashamed each time he saw Imam Hussein overwhelmed on the parched battlefield.
“When I see western countries cannot tolerate us having nuclear technology, I am willing to do anything,” he said, leafing through posters of Imam Hussein at a stall.
When asked whether he felt the spirit of the passion plays could still inspire Iranians to take up arms against mightier adversaries, he replied: “I am 100 per cent sure”.
Taziyeh plays are part of numerous rites surrounding Ashura. Houses and streets are decked out with black pennants.
Many join spine-tingling slow-marches, beating themselves with chains to a steady drumbeat. Iran has banned mourners from slicing open their foreheads with swords, but witnesses say the custom still continues.
The mourning rites have historically proved volatile.
In 1829, an incensed mob attending the Ashura rites stormed the Russian embassy and murdered the diplomats.
Some historians argue politicians took advantage of feverish religious emotions to hit back at Russia for imposing a humiliating treaty on Persia.
This year’s mourning period has seen petrol bomb attacks on European embassies over cartoons depicting the holy Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him). Conservative students would take time out from pelting embassies to recite mourning prayers for Hussein.
However, many mourners insisted Ashura was a wholly religious tradition and said politicians should keep out.
“Some try to get the people to protest about the nuclear issue and about cartoons of the holy Prophet during the mourning period but in fact Ashura does not having anything to do with this,” said stall-holder Hassan Imadi.—Reuters
